New kind of CRISPR technology to target RNA, including RNA viruses like coronavirus
CRISPR-based genetic screens have helped scientists identify genes that are key players in sickle-cell anemia, cancer immunotherapy, lung cancer metastasis, and many other diseases. However, these genetic screens are limited in scope: They can only edit or target DNA. For many regions of the human genome, targeting DNA may not be effective, and other organisms, such as RNA viruses like coronavirus or flu, cannot be targeted at all with existing DNA-targeting CRISPR screens.
Read more ...
A world premiere from Erasmus MC and Utrecht University: they found an antibody against COVID-19
Since Thursday evening, the article by a team of ten scientists has been online on BioRxiv - a website where biologists can publish their research before it will be assessed by the prestigious journal Nature. In the summary, the scientists describe an antibody to SARS2, the coronavirus causing the current pandemic (COVID-19). The antibody can help detect and prevent this type of corona infection.
Read more ...
Individual response to COVID-19 'as important' as government action
How individuals respond to government advice on preventing the spread of COVID-19 will be at least as important, if not more important, than government action, according to a new commentary from researchers at the University of Oxford and Imperial College London in the UK, and Utrecht University and the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands.
Read more ...
Preventing spread of SARS coronavirus-2 in humans
Several coronaviruses circulate worldwide and constantly infect humans, which normally caused only mild respiratory disease. Currently, however, we are witnessing a worldwide spread of a new coronavirus with more than 90,000 confirmed cases and over 3,000 deaths. The new virus has been named SARS coronavirus-2 and has been transmitted from animals to humans. It causes a respiratory disease called COVID-19 that may take a severe course.
Read more ...
COVID-19 a reminder of the challenge of emerging infectious diseases
The emergence and rapid increase in cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a respiratory illness caused by a novel coronavirus, pose complex challenges to the global public health, research and medical communities, write federal scientists from NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Their commentary appears in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Read more ...
Study reveals how drug meant for Ebola may also work against coronaviruses
A group of University of Alberta researchers who have discovered why the drug remdesivir is effective in treating the coronaviruses that cause Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) expect it might also be effective for treating patients infected with the new COVID-19 strain.
Read more ...
Study sheds light on how a drug being tested in COVID-19 patients works
A team of academic and industry researchers is reporting new findings about how exactly an investigational antiviral drug stops coronaviruses. Their paper was published the same day that the National Institutes of Health announced that the drug in question, remdesivir, is being used in the nation's first clinical trial of an experimental treatment for COVID-19, the illness caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Read more ...